The invention relates to a cooling device for cooling a switchgear cabinet, the cooling device comprising an air inlet side for warm air and an air outlet side for cooled air, wherein a heat exchanger and at least one fan unit comprising a radial fan are disposed between the air inlet side and the air outlet side, and wherein the fan unit produces an air stream having a main flow direction through the heat exchanger between the air inlet side and the air outlet side, wherein the fan unit is disposed in the main flow direction behind the heat exchanger. Such cooling device is known from postpublished international patent application PCT/EP2011/052932.
Such cooling devices are used in particular in data centers comprising a cold aisle and a hot aisle, wherein the cold aisle is separated from the hot aisle by means of a line of switchgear cabinets that are lined up next to each other. Such cooling devices are in particular implemented as inline-devices that are integrated into the line of switchgear cabinets. Such cooling devices draw the warm air out of the hot aisle via their air inlet side and exhaust cooled air via their air outlet side into the cold aisle. For dissipation of the thermal dissipation loss of the components enclosed in the switchgear cabinets cooled air is drawn from the cold aisle via a side of the switchgear cabinets that is facing the cold aisle, the air is guided through the switchgear cabinets where it heats up, and is exhausted into the hot aisle.
In order to keep the energy consumption of such cooling devices as low as possible it is best practice to equip the fan units with radial fans, in particular with such radial fans that comprise backward curved blades. However, these have the disadvantage that they are not applicable for linear routing of the air flow. If the cooling device is therefore intended to be used as an inline device as described above, so far it has not been possible in cooling devices that comprise radial fans to guide the air stream linearly between the air inlet side of the cooling device and the air outlet side of the cooling device. In particular, there is no such cooling device known in the art, wherein the air inlet side and the air outlet side are parallel sides of the cooling device, for example a back side and a front side of the cooling device. To the contrary, the utilization of radial fans in the known cooling devices always requires that the cooled air is drawn out of the cooling device laterally, that is, including an angle of 90° with respect to the main flow direction. In order to enable such air outlet, it is always necessary that the cooling device protrudes beyond the front faces of the switchgear cabinets. This, however, has disadvantages in terms of the air guidance within the cold aisle as well as in view of the commonly limited space within the cold aisle.